The invention relates to a system for electronically distributing documents. More specifically, the invention relates to a system for delivering readership information about documents that were electronically distributed through an investment research delivery system.
Brokers and security issuers produce tens of thousands of investment research reports, sales brochures, annual reports and the like annually. These reports are carefully prepared and edited by analysts and marketers from textual and graphical information using desk top publishing systems. The completed reports are delivered not only to the brokers"" branch and retail offices, but also to institutional investors. Millions of dollars are spent to prepare, print and mail these reports, yet no sufficient mechanism other than word of mouth exists for portfolio managers or institutional investors to determine readership of these reports.
Institutional investors are regularly besieged with these investment research reportsxe2x80x94many portfolio/fund managers receive over three feet of investment research reports per week. As a result, as many as 65% of the reports are thrown out unopened, and less than 10% of the reports are ever read. The cost of report retention is also significant and may be prohibitive. To determine which reports might be most important and influential, analysts, portfolio managers and institutional investors may desire a satisfactory way to obtain documentation on how frequently portfolio managers read specific reports.
Some on-line systems keep track of readership of articles for the purpose of billing the clients who read the articles. Lexis and Westlaw are two such systems which are well known. U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,087 to Taub et al. discloses a utility that transmits educational materials and keeps track of their usage for the purpose of obtaining royalties and evaluating the teaching materials. The disadvantages to these systems is that the usage information may not be retrievable by the users of the system.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,649,013 to Stuckey et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,678,170 to Grube et al. both disclose method and apparatus for tracking the distribution of data for the purpose of obtaining royalties and monitoring the use of the data. Once again, the disadvantages to these systems is that the usage information may not be retrievable by the users of the system.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,186,438 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,230,073 both disclose a system for monitoring the use of files for the purpose of keeping the most frequently requested files on a partial local database. This readership information, however, may not be comprehensive, nor accessible to everyone who wishes to use it.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,502,637 to Beaulieu et al., discloses an investment research delivery system. The Beaulieu et al. system has a host that receives investment research from a plurality of brokers and broadcasts the investment research to a plurality of investors. Although the Beaulieu et al. system can provide some readership feedback to analysts, the system does not provide a readership information to portfolio managers and institutional investors. Furthermore, the Beaulieu et al. system does not provide statistical information such as what percentage of reports were read in a firm, an industry or a bond sector.
What is desired by portfolio managers, institutional investors and analysts is a way to obtain a variety of user feedback information about investment research retrieval from an investment research delivery system for the purpose of determining which reports were read more frequently and by whom.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a system for distributing rankings information about the distribution of documents from an investment research delivery system.
It is another object of the invention to provide a system of the above that gives rankings information on the frequency that a firm""s, an analyst""s, or an industry""s reports were read.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a system of the above that gives detailed categorical information in addition to rankings information.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a system of the above wherein the information is obtainable over different periods of time.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a system of the above that can provide up to date categorical information or other additional information.
These objects of the invention are achieved by a system for delivering rankings information on readership of investment research reports, which comprises the use of a plurality of readership information reports each including at least an article identification, a computer having a software program executing on it for analyzing said plurality of readership information reports such that for each unique article identification, the program counts the number of occurrences of that article identification in the readership information reports, then sorts the counts into a ranked list, a database electrically connected to the computer for receiving and storing the ranked list, and an electronic data interface for receiving requests for and transmitting the ranked list. The system can further comprise a readership information database for storing the plurality of readership reports. A method for using the same is also provided.